Ritual and Religion in Flavian Epic

Hardcover | April 29, 2013

This edited collection addresses the role of ritual representations and religion in the epic poems of the Flavian period (69-96 CE): Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, Silius Italicus' Punica, Statius' Thebaid, and the unfinished Achilleid. Drawing on various modern studies on religion and ritual,and the relationship between literature and religion in the Greco-Roman world, it explores how we can interpret the poets' use of the relationship between gods and humans, cults and rituals, religious activities, and the role of the seer / prophet and his identification with poetry.Divided into three major sections, the volume includes essays on the most important religious activities (prophecy or augury, prayers and hymns) and the relationship between religion and political power under the Flavian emperors. It also addresses specific episodes in Flavian epic which focus onreligious activities associated with the dead and the Underworld, such as purification, necromancy, katabasis, suicide, and burial. It finally explores the role of gender in ritual and religion.

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This edited collection addresses the role of ritual representations and religion in the epic poems of the Flavian period (69-96 CE): Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica, Silius Italicus' Punica, Statius' Thebaid, and the unfinished Achilleid. Drawing on various modern studies on religion and ritual,and the relationship between literature and...

Antony Augoustakis is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign, USA). He is the author of Motherhood and the Other: Fashioning Female Power in Flavian Epic (2010) and Plautus' Mercator.

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Table of Contents

List of ContributorsPrefaceTexts and Translations UsedList of AbbreviationsAntony Augoustakis: Introduction: Representing ritual and religion in Flavian epicPart A: Gods and humans1. Marco Fucecchi: With (a) god on our side: Ancient ritual practices and imagery in Flavian Epic2. Gesine Manuwald: Divine messages and human actions in the Argonautica3. Helen Lovatt: Competing visions: Prophecy, spectacle, and theatricality in Flavian epic4. Anne Tuttle: Argive augury and portents in the Thebaid5. Eleni Manolaraki: Consider in the image of Thebes: Celestial and poetic auspicy in the Thebaid6. Ann Hubert: Malae preces and their articulation in the Thebaid7. Bruce Gibson: Hymnic features in Statian epic and the Siluae8. Federica Bessone: 8 Religion and Power in the ThebaidPart B: Death and ritual9. Ruth Parkes: Chthonic ingredients and thematic concerns: The shaping of the necromancy in the Thebaid10. Nicholas Dee: Wasted water: The failure of purification in the Thebaid11. R. Joy Littlewood: Patterns of darkness: Chthonic illusion, gigantomachy, and sacrificial ritual in the Punica12. Robert Cowan: Back out of hell: The virtual Katabasis and initiation of Silius Minucius13. Neil W. Bernstein: Ritual murder and suicide in the Thebaid14. Randall Ganiban: The death and funeral rites of Opheltes in the Thebaid15. Martin T. Dinter: Epitaphic gestures in Statius and Silius ItalicusPart C: Ritual and the female16. Raymond Marks: Reconcilable differences: Anna Perenna in the battle of Cannae in the Punica17. Alison Keith: Medusa, Python, and Poine in Argive religious ritual18. Christopher Chinn: Orphic ritual and myth in the Thebaid19. Vassiliki Panoussi: Dancing in Scyros: Masculinity and young women s rituals in the AchilleidBibliographyIndex LocorumGeneral Index